Boulder history: Bike path network long in the making

Al Bartlett got the idea 50 years ago

In recent years, new bright blue "Boulder Bikeways" signs have been installed all over the city. Bikeways is yet another successful citizen effort in Boulder.

The late Al Bartlett got the idea 50 years ago. He created a map of potential bicycle routes around Boulder and began presenting his plan to service clubs. The designated courses were on streets with light car traffic and would be marked with clear signage. Bartlett recalled his effort in a series of oral history interviews available at the Carnegie Branch Library for Local History.

Initially, the concept was primarily about safety. Bartlett believed that kids should have a way to get to places, like school and the Boulder Reservoir, without having to risk their lives on heavily traveled streets, he recalled.

Bartlett received encouragement in correspondence with the Bicycle Institute of America. The Institute credited Homestead, Fla., with having the nation's first system of bikeways, implemented in 1962.

By 1968, Bartlett and his student assistant, Ted Wells, had submitted a document to the city entitled "Bikeways for Boulder." He recruited his daughter's Girl Scout troop to help. The girls from Troop 476, which met at Columbine Elementary School, rode all of the streets around the school and identified safe routes. They presented their findings to the Boulder Planning Board in April 1969.

Meanwhile, Bartlett had approached Plan Boulder with his idea, and the group agreed to fund the printing of thousands of leaflets.

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Bikeways leaflets were distributed to kids attending bicycle safety clinics. The flyers suggested calling the city to show support. Shortly thereafter, Bartlett remembered, City Manager Ted Tedesco telephoned him and said, "Call off the kids. We got the message!"

In 1970, Roger Cracraft, chair of the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board, and Bartlett, vice chair, rode through the ribbon for the first section of Boulder Bikeways, on a tandem bicycle, Bartlett recalled.

Roger Cracraft and Al Bartlett ride through the ribbon to celebrate the first section of Boulder Bikeways in 1970. (Courtesy Carnegie Branch Library for Local History / Albert A. Bartlett Collection)

Long before the Boulder Creek Path was created, this initial route was from the Boulder Public Library to Scott Carpenter Park, with requirements for dismounting at major intersections, Bartlett said.

The Girl Scouts' Columbine School Bikeways plan was underway by the end of 1970. In May of 1971, a "Bicycles for Boulder" rally was held, with 2,500 in attendance. "Mayor Robert Knecht rode with them and told the group that the city had appropriated some $20,000 for bikeways in Boulder, about three times as much as in 1970," according to "Municipal Government History, Boulder, Colorado, 1965-1974," compiled by Virginia Braddock.

Karen Paget took up the cause when she was elected to City Council in 1971. It was a challenge getting the concept accepted, Paget said in a Daily Camera story. In a recent telephone interview, Paget recalled her interest in Boulder Bikeways. Paget, now a fulltime writer in Emeryville, Calif., was not a bicycle rider at the time, but she was an environmentalist and was passionate about alternative transportation.

"It was the time of an explosion of environmental concerns," she remarked.

The Bikeways proposal was met with suspicion. What should have been a non-controversial issue became volatile, Paget said.

"Growth was the hot issue in 1971," she recalled.

Paget said citizens were reluctant to support Bikeways because they thought the funds would be taken from allocations for much needed roads. Some viewed Bikeways as a symbolic attack on cars, she explained. An issue on the June 6, 1972, special election ballot — bonds for $905,000 to create 71.1 miles of Boulder Bikeways — failed.

Bartlett's Bikeways group soldiered on.

While campaigning for reelection in 1973, Paget told a Daily Camera reporter, "I also feel that people are realizing that bicycles are not a fad that will go away." She added, "It is critical that we commit ourselves to an effective bikeway system."

Another 6-mile stretch of Bikeways was added in 1973. Support for Bikeways grew gradually. In 1977, the Transportation Department released "The Boulder Bikeway Plan," which outlined a network of 77 miles of cycling routes.

According to its website, the city of Boulder now boasts more than 300 miles of bike lanes, bike paths, bike routes, designated shoulders and paths.

Reflecting, in the 1991 oral history interview, Bartlett remarked, "I had no idea we would have something nearly as nice as we have now."

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